Prompted by Don Alfonso, a cynical old philosopher, two young idealists decide to put their lovers’ fidelity to the test. But love will teach them a bitter lesson: those who believe themselves phoenixes and goddesses will discover the desires of the flesh… In 1790, one year after the French Revolution, in what would be their final collaboration, Mozart and Da Ponte conduct a scientific investigation of love. With six singers doubled by six dancers, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker depicts the desire which unites and separates human beings, like the interactions between atoms that, once broken, make new bonds possible
Thierry De Mey filmed Rosas danst Rosas in the former technical school of architect Henry Van de Velde in Leuven. The film version is much shorter than the show itself. In his film Thierry De Mey opts for a heavily ‘inter-cut’ version in which, apart from the cast of four dancers from 1995 and 1996, he also has all the other performers from the long history of the show dance along. He makes maximum use of the geometrical and spatial qualities of the Van de Veldes building. Incidentally, the building was thoroughly renovated straight after the film was made, making it one of the last testimonials to the original architecture. The film was shown on all of the major European television channels and also had a cinema career in the ‘art house circuit’.
In Hoppla!, two choreographies by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker are brought together and performed to the music of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók: Mikrokosmos, seven short works for two pianos, and Quatuor no. 4, Bartók’s fourth string quartet. The reading room of the Ghent University library, designed by the renowned architect Henry Van de Velde, serves as location.
A short documentary about the creation process of Rosas danst Rosas, the performance that forced Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s international breakthrough and has become a benchmark in the history of postmodern dance. This documentary, directed by Stefaan Decostere for the BRT cultural programme Het Gerucht [The Rumour, ed.], uses fragments of rehearsals and interviews with De Keersmaeker and composer Thierry De Mey, offering a glimpse of the choreographic creative process in which repeated abstract movements play a key role.